The Rustle of Silk
now, then?" The question came quietly but had the effect of making
Chalfont suspend his fork in mid-air.
"Yes. I do. But under the present system what is the ordinary plain man
to do but stand aside and watch our political muddlers mess everything
up? I was asked to rejoin and take over a district in Ireland. Not me. I
could see myself raising Cain in about ten minutes and washed out at the
end of a week. Soldiers aren't required in Ireland."
"No?"
"No. Nor policemen, nor machine guns. Ireland stands in need of a little
man with an Irish accent and the soul of Christ."
Lola rose to her feet. Fallaray had done the same thing and was bending
over his mother.
And so Chalfont with, it must be confessed, a slightly rueful glance at
his plate, told the waiter to give his bill to his chief, and followed
Madame de Breze along the lane between the tables and up the long path
of the "monkey house." And presently, when Fallaray gave his number to
the flunkey and waited for his coat and hat, Chalfont carried out his
orders. He went forward. "How do you do?" he said. "Wonderful weather."
It was a little lame.
Fallaray did not recognize the speaker except as a man who obviously had
been a soldier. A left hand had been presented. The other was eloquent
enough. "How are you?" he replied. "Yes, it _is_ wonderful weather."
And then Chalfont made the plunge. "I want to introduce you, if I may,
to one of our Allies who admires you very much, Madame de Breze--Mr.
Fallaray."
Fallaray turned. From the little eager hand that nestled into his own
Lola sent a message of all the hero-worship and adoration that possessed
her soul and all the desire to serve and love that had become the one
overwhelming passion of her life. But neither spoke.
A moment later she was standing with Peter Chalfont, watching Fallaray
on his way out with the two little ladies.--Her heart was fluttering
like the wings of a bird.
But half-way through the evening, after having been swept away by
Tschaikowsky's "Francesca da Rimini" and the Fantasy from "Romeo and
Juliet" and stirred deeply by Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," Fallaray
underwent a strange and disconcerting experience. Leaving his place
between his mother and old Lady Ladbroke, he went to smoke a cigarette
in the foyer of the hall during the intermission. The music had gone to
his brain and driven out of it for the moment the anxieties that beset
him. All the vibrations of that wonderful orchestra flew about him like
a million birds and the sense of sex that he had got from Lola's touch
ran through his veins.
He went through the swing-doors and out onto the steps of the building.
It was one of those wonderful nights which come sometimes in April and
touch the city with magic. It was like the advance guard of June
bringing with it the warmth and the scents of that exquisite month. The
sky was clear and almost Italian, and the moonlight lay like snow on the
roofs. It cast long shadows across the street. Fallaray looked up at the
stars and a new and curious thrill of youth ran through him and a sort
of impatience at having missed something--he hardly knew what. Wherever
he looked he seemed to see two wide-apart eyes filled with adoration and
longing and a little red mouth half open. "De Breze," he said to
himself. "De Breze." And the name seemed to hold romance and to carry
his thoughts out of London, out of the present and back to the times of
beflowered garments and powdered heads, of minuets and high red heels.
And as he stood there, far away from the bewilderment and futility of
Parliament, a car drove up to the hall and two women got out. They were
Mrs. Malwood and Feo and they were dressed in country clothes--the
curious country clothes affected by them both. Mrs. Malwood, who was
laughing and excited, passed Fallaray without noticing him and entered
the building. But Feo drew up short in front of him, amazed at his
expression. "Good Lord, Arthur," she said, "what are you doing here and
what on earth are you thinking about?"
Music and the stars and Lola were in his eyes as he looked at her. "I
thought you were in the country," he said.
"I was. I shall be again in an hour or two. In the middle of dinner I
suddenly remembered that a protege of mine, Leo Kirosch, was to sing
here to-night. So I dashed up. He's in the second part of the program,
so I shall be in time to hear him. It entirely rotted the party, but
that couldn't be helped."
She had never seen that look in Fallaray's eyes before and was
intrigued. It had never been brought to life by her. Could it be
possible that this Quixote, this St. Anthony, had looked at last upon
the flesh pots? What fun if he had! How delicious was the mere vague
idea of Fallaray, of all men, being touched by anything so ordinary and
human as love, and how vastly amusing that she, who had worked herself
into a sort of half belief that she was attracted by this young Polish
singer, should now stand face to face with the man to whom she was tied
by law, though by no other bonds. The dash up from the country was worth
it even though she had risen unsatisfied from dinner and missed her
coffee and cognac.... Or was it that she herself, having dropped from
the clouds, and looking as she knew she did, more beautiful and fresh
than usual because of her imaginary love affair with this long-haired
youth who sang like a thrush, had brought this unaccustomed look into
her husband's eyes?... How very amusing!
"Do you mean to say that having only driven down this afternoon to the
country, you've come all the way up again just to hear two or three
songs?"
"I do," she said. "Mad, isn't it? 'That crazy woman Feo on the rampage
again.' Is that what you're thinking?"
"Something like that," he answered, and smiled at her. He felt queerly
and charmingly young that night and lenient and rather in sympathy with
madness. The Cromwellianism in which he had wrapped himself had fallen
temporarily from his shoulders. He put his hand under her elbow and
brought her up to the top step on a level with himself.
"My God," thought Lady Feo, "the man's alive for once. He tingles. I
_must_ be looking well." What did it matter if Leo Kirosch was singing
and she would miss his songs? It was much better sport to stand on the
steps of that old building and flirt with her husband. She took his arm
and stood close against him and looked up into his face with her most
winning smile. "It gave me the shock of my life to see you here," she
said. "I didn't know that you had a penchant for these suburban orgies.
Who are you with?"
"My mother and Aunt Betsy."
Under any other circumstances Feo would have thrown back her head and
laughed derisively. Those two old birds. Instead of which she snuggled a
little closer just to see the effect. It was ages since she had treated
this man to anything in the nature of familiarity, in fact it was the
first time since that night when she had made him kiss her because his
profile and his tennis playing had obsessed her.
"After you've taken them home," she said, "why not motor back with us?
It's a gorgeous night, and the Eliots' cottage is high up on a range of
hills almost within reaching distance of the stars."
Her grotesque sense of humor carried her away. How immense it would be
to tempt this man out of the stony path of duty and see what he would
do. What a story for her little friends! What screams of mirth she could
evoke in her recital of so amazing an event, especially as she could
dress it all up as she alone knew so well how to do! And then to be able
to add to it all the indignant broken English of Kirosch at finding
himself deserted. He had promised to sing to her that night. What a
frightfully funny story.
For a moment or two, with the intoxication of music and of those
wide-apart eyes still upon him, Fallaray stood closer to his wife than
he had ever been. It seemed to him that she had grown softer and sweeter
and he was surprised and full of wonder, until he remembered that she
had come to see Kirosch, whom she called her protege--and then he
understood.
Mrs. Malwood came out and luckily broke things up. "He's singing," she
said. "Aren't you coming in? Good heavens, Feo, what the deuce are you
playing at? You've dragged me up and ruined everything, only to miss the
very thing you seemed so keen to hear. What is the idea?" She recognized
Fallaray and said, "Oh, it's you."
And he bowed and got away--that kink in Feo's nature was all across her
face like a birthmark.
And when Feo looked again, she saw in Fallaray's eyes once more the old
aloofness, the old dislike. And she laughed and threw back her head.
"_Cherchez la femme_," she said. "One of these days I'll get you to tell
me why you looked like that." And she disappeared with Mrs. Malwood to
smile down on Kirosch from her seat near the platform.
And Fallaray remained out under the stars, his intoxication all gone.
Nowhere could he see and nowhere did he wish to see those wide-apart
eyes with their adoration. The tingle of that little hand had left him.
And just as he turned to go back into the building a newspaper boy
darted out to a side street with a shrill raucous cry, "Speshall. Mines
Floodin'. Riots in Wales. Speshall."
III
The tears that blinded her eyes had gone when Chalfont came back from
the cloakroom. He saw on Lola's face a smile that made him think of
sunlight on a bank of primroses.
But they didn't go to the Coliseum, after all. It so happened that just
as they were about to leave the Savoy, Chalfont was pounced upon by a
little woman, the sight of whom made Lola long to burst into a laugh.
She was amazingly fat, almost as fat indeed as one of those pathetic
women who go round with circuses and sit in a tent all by themselves
dressed in tinsel and present an unbelievable leg to gaping yokels and
say, "Pinch it, dearie, and see for yourself." Her good-natured face,
with eyes as blue as birds' eggs, ran down into three double chins. It
was crowned with a mass of hair dyed a brilliant yellow, the roots of
which grew blackly like last year's leaves under spring's carpet. With
an inconceivable lack of humor she was dressed like a flapper. She was a
comic note in a tragic world. "Oh, hello, Peter," she said. "You bad
boy, you've deserted me," and then she looked at Lola with a beaming
smile of appreciation and added, "No wonder."
More than a little annoyed, because the one thing that he most wanted
was to keep Lola to himself, Peter presented his cork hand. "I've been
in the country," he said. "I'm awfully sorry I had to miss your party.
Lady Cheyne--Madame de Breze."
"There, I knew you were French. I've been betting on it ever since you
came in. We could see you two from our table." She waved her hand
towards a group of six or seven people who were standing at the top of
the stairs. "Come along home with me now," she said. "We're going to
have some music. I've got a new Russian violinist--you needn't be
afraid, he's been thoroughly disinfected--and a dear thing who sings the
roof off. I can't pronounce her name. It's a cross between a sneeze and
an oath. I believe she comes from Czecho-Slovakia. Also I've got Alton
Cartridge, the poet. He's going to read one of his latest effusions.
He's the great futurist, you know. That is, he doesn't bother himself
about rhymes and not very much about reason. Why don't you both come?"
Chalfont looked quickly at Lola and signaled, "For God's sake, no."
So she said, "I should love to." The name and fame of Lady Cheyne was
well known to her through the medium of the "Letters of Evelyn."
"That's very sweet of you, my dear. One hundred Kensington Gore.
Memorize it, because I know that Peter will forget. He always does. We